Regional Hazard Mitigation Planning:
As we have seen time and time again, natural disasters do not obey local jurisdictional boundaries. When this fact is combined with the reality of shrinking municipal budgets and growing responsibilities placed upon local planners,...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is now accepting applications under Section 6025 of the Agricultural Act of 2014 (P.L. 113-79 (https://www NULL.congress NULL.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/2642)). USDA-Rural Development is authorized to provide funding priority to projects that support strategic economic and community...

Metropolitan and rural America are highly connected and interdependent. To succeed, metropolitan America needs a healthy and sustainable rural economy and culture, and in turn rural America needs vibrant, well-functioning cities and suburbs to thrive and flourish.

The U.S. Economic Development Administration (http://www NULL.eda NULL.gov), the National Association of Development Organizations, and the National Association of Regional Councils (http://www NULL.narc NULL.org)hosted a webinar on May 27 that took a closer look at the competitive grant opportunities...

Across the country, local and regional agencies are finding new ways of building resilience through their day-to-day decisions. By applying a new lens to not only disaster recovery but also to planning, zoning, capital investment, lending, and other routine services,...

On May 5-6, around 50 participants met in Billings, Montana for the “Sustainable Communities Initiative Western Rural Grantee Gathering,” organized by the Minnesota Housing Partnership (http://www NULL.mhponline NULL.org/) and the NADO Research Foundation through the Sustainable Communities Learning Network (http://sclearningnetwork...

The NADO Research Foundation (http://www NULL.eda NULL.gov) has received funding from the U.S. Economic Development Administration (http://www NULL.eda NULL.gov) to conduct a one-year training program for Economic Development Districts (EDDs). The goal of the program is to provide EDD staff...

The Center for Disease Control’s Community Health Status Indicators (CHSI) 2015 (http://wwwn NULL.cdc NULL.gov/communityhealth) is an interactive web application that produces health profiles for all 3,143 counties in the United States. Each profile includes key indicators of health outcomes, which...

Hazard mitigation and economic development activities—both critical to the long-term prosperity of regions and communities across the country—are often conducted separately. As a result, hazard mitigation plans and economic development strategies can be disconnected, making it difficult to ensure that...

This case study series highlights how regional development organizations have used 2008 disaster recovery funds from EDA to address the impacts of natural disasters, become more resilient to future events, and increase long-term economic competitiveness and quality of life in their regions.